Not Always Read Front to Back

One of the more surprising things I learned in college is that things are not always read front to back. In fact, it seems that is the least likely way to read something in academia.

The standard method, as I have been told, is to start with the bibliography. This lets you see who the author is basing their work off of. It's kind of like meeting somebody's parents to try to understand what the person is like (that's my analogy). The next step is to read the conclusion. The conclusion will tell you the main point being argued and will tie everything into a neat little package. Then you go to the beginning and read the first paragraph of each section. This gives you an overview of what each part is.

Apparently, you don't even read the main body of text unless you are specifically looking for something. I still can't get over it. It makes sense as a reader, but as a writer, it is insane.

If I am telling a story, the best way to do it is to start from the beginning and go forward. If I'm jumping round all the time, nobody will have any idea what's going on. Of course, this advice isn't intended for fiction. It's more for reading texts, nonfiction works. But even in nonfiction, I can't imagine writing any way but front to back. I start with a main point, and logically progress from one point to the next, eventually reaching a conclusion.

When I learned this reading trick, I tried it out. As it turns out, it is pretty effective. What I realized is that a person's main point may be made of eight smaller points that all work together, so their logic may not be a simple, straight line. If you use this reading trick, you start with the biggest picture, then work your way into finer detail. When you read front to back, you constantly change level and scope throughout it.

My original thought on the subject was that, regardless of how it is read, you should always write front to back. But now I'm not sure about that. If you start wit the big picture, break that up into sections, and then write about each of those sections in depth, you may do just as well as you would trying to write it linearly.

Experiment with the writing style. You may find that you enjoy writing front to back, or you might find that you like jumping around. Just make sure you have some kind of organization. An untraditional format can still be deciphered, but a jumbled mess is worthless.